JFK Conspiracy Theories IV: The One With The Whales
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abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
A sabot? Is this how low you are willing to sink?
Sure, because nobody can ever 100% replicate any gunshot, ever. It is simply impossible. Surely you do not think it is?
BStrong
Penultimate Amazing
MicahJava
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I know there's one part where Posner lies and says Humes and Boswell personally told him they agreed that the entry was in the cowlick, but in reality they never said that and actually spoke out in a 1992 JAMA article where they reaffirmed their original placement of the head wound, 2.5 centimeters to the right and slightly above external occipital protuberance.
HSienzant
Philosopher
Because at this point the issue is resolved. The bullet can pass through two people and remain remarkably undeformed. What's the point of trying to get a better example?
Conspiracy theorists will still find some 'reason' to reject it, just like the Discovery Channel's attempt at a recreation is rejected.
Hank
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HSienzant
Philosopher
It's still in one piece, and it struck two medical dummies with the appropriate sinew and bone simulants. And it still has an undeformed tip.
Conspiracy theorists have questioned for five decades whether a bullet could survive the passage through two men and emerge with an undeformed tip and in one piece.
For example, in RUSH TO JUDGMENT, Mark Lane wrote:
Since one bullet was supposed by the Commission to have struck the President and Governor Connally and to have remained intact, the Commission called experts to prove that -any 6.5-millimeter bullet could do the same.
Scientific medical experiments for the Commission were conducted by a veterinarian, Dr Alfred G. Olivier, described by the Commission as 'a doctor who had spent 7 years in wounds ballistics research for the U.S. Army'. One of Dr Olivier's main tasks was to have a bullet fired from the alleged assassination rifle through the carcass of a goat said by the Commission to simulate Governor Connally's back and chest. Dr Olivier said that the damage done to the goat carcass was 'very similar' to the injury to Governor Connally's rib. However, when asked to describe the bullet used in the experiment, he said, 'The bullet has been quite flattened.' Commission Exhibit 399 is almost unaltered.
Another bullet was fired through the wrist of a human cadaver. Asked how the fracture compared with Governor Connally's wound, Dr Olivier replied with pardonable pride, 'In this particular instance to the best of my memory from looking at the X-rays, it is very close. It is about one of the best ones that we obtained.' Yet Dr Olivier admitted of the bullet that struck the cadaver's wrist that 'the nose of the bullet is quite flattened from striking the radius [bone].'
Q. How does it compare, for example, with Commission Exhibit 399 ?
Dr Olivier : It is not like it at all. I mean. Commission Exhibit 399 is not flattened on the end. This one is very severely flattened on the end.
Dr Olivier also had a bullet fired through a gelatin block simulating the President's neck but was mercifully spared any question about the bullet's condition.
However, even after all that, Lane conceded that the appropriate test (to test for bullet condition) was never performed by Olivier, and thus, his criticisms aimed at the condition of the bullet were thereby invalid:
Although the Commission asserted that its experts had proved that one bullet could pass through the President's neck and then through the Governor's chest and wrist and enter his thigh, the experts had never attempted that comprehensive test. Instead, they had fired different bullets, each through a different substance, each bullet suffering distortion in the process. Nevertheless the Commission concluded that one bullet—Commission Exhibit 399—did all the damage, while remaining unshattered, unflattened, undeformed.
It is neither unflattened nor undeformed. Lane lied about its condition.
Faced now with a example of a bullet that survived the entire passage the Commission concluded CE399 underwent, they (and you) are forced now to quibble over the apparent amount of deformation.
Like that was not unexpected. Conspiracy theorists accept nothing that points to non-conspiracy, not matter how well documented.
Hank
PS: You still owe me a scenario for how a pointed tip bullet wound up in Parkland Hospital to be discovered on the same floor as Governor Connally's stretcher.
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Do you have the quote from Posner handy?
Humes and Boswell would have been speaking well before Posners book was even published.
SpitfireIX
Philosopher
B.S. in mechanical engineering technology here. First, this is impossible according to the laws of physics as they are currently understood. Second, I googled the three words/phrases as you suggested, and didn't get any hits in several pages. I even added the word "hunting" and still got no hits in two pages. Third, even granting, arguendo, that such discussions exist, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data". So either produce some real evidence for your claim (that is, that this is a real phenomenon, not that certain individuals believe it is a real phenomenon), or retract the claim and apologize to BStrong for your accusation of lying.
MicahJava
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Undeformed tip? I don't know about that. I understand that the argument has always been that the bullet was tumbling when it hit bone.
Are you projecting? Go back and look at the gif. The Discovery Channel bullet was bent to high heaven, while the base of CE399 was slightly pinched. At the least, one might expect CE399 to look like lone nutters wish the Discovery Channel bullet looked like. And that was THE CLOSEST THING TO A DUPLICATION OF CE399 IN HISTORY. I think you're just looking for that to be the answer. It's no less magic than it was in the Mark Lane days.
You owe me a response to my older comment about the cranial opening apparent on the back photo and how it relates to the location of the small head wound as examined by Dr. Finck.
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The Discovery Channel bullet also shattered more than one rib in the Connally mock up, which might account for the difference in damage.
Also, it's the best attempt at a replication because it's really the only attempt at a replication. I'd say they came pretty damn close.
If you need another demonstration of how tough those Carcano rounds are, for one of the specials around the 50th anniversary of the assassination they fired a round through over 3 feet of solid pine and it came out looking like it had never been fired.
Also, it's the best attempt at a replication because it's really the only attempt at a replication. I'd say they came pretty damn close.
If you need another demonstration of how tough those Carcano rounds are, for one of the specials around the 50th anniversary of the assassination they fired a round through over 3 feet of solid pine and it came out looking like it had never been fired.
MicahJava
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The damage was exponentially several times more than CE399.
I think your memory is garbled. The "3 feet of solid pine" was a claim by John Lattimer with no photographs to prove it.
"This bullet [a 6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcano missile like Warren Commission Exhibit 399] can penetrate four feet of solid wood or three pine telephone poles side by side and come out looking completely undeformed.
On the other hand, if it is fired into the thick bone of the back of a human skull, the jacket and core of the bullet will separate, releasing a myriad of additional fragments of many different sizes."
-Lincoln and Kennedy: Medical and Ballistic Comparisons of Their Assassinations
There's no proof that this happened, and even if there was, wood is not comparable. Pine is a soft wood. Bone is about as strong as steel of the same density.
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BStrong
Penultimate Amazing
I know you have difficulty in differentiating between fact and fiction yourself.
Want to go a few more rounds about what "the worlds greatest snipers" and "Olympic Snipers" have to say about LHO? maybe some proof of these new-fangled "ventriloquist suppressors" you've discovered?
You throw that L word accusation at the drop of a hat. It's like you have a pile of rocks and you throw them at every point of the compass while living in a glass house.
Relying on the reset button isn't going to be fun for you.
OK, if that's the standard of proof you're using, great. Could you link where the conspiracy version of the bullets are replicated? We need one bullet that penetrated JFK's upper back a couple of inches then stopped. And another bullet that penetrated JFK's neck from the front a few inches then stopped. Both these bullets then have to disappear into thin air and never be seen by anyone. And before you try the old ice bullet myth, that was definitely busted on the Mythbusters TV show.
And don't forget to show a trajectory that explains Connally's wounds without going through JFK first, taking into account that Connally was sitting inboard and lower than JFK at the time.
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Oh Micah...did you actually think I'd make a claim like that and not be able to back it up? I'm not you.
https://youtu.be/a-imJWUcMso
Bullet shot through 36 inches of pine, completely undamaged.
Anything else?
MicahJava, this YouTube channel also has other videos you might find interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiKrR7BLFv0
Particularly pay attention towards the end, there's a guy that agrees with you about the autopsy doctors being right about the rear entry and the HSCA being wrong. I found it informative, even if I don't necessarily agree with him.
Or is Peter Cummings, a forensic pathologist, a member of THEY?
MicahJava
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Fact: The only time any person present at the autopsy agreed that the red spot on the cowlick was the small head wound was when Dr. Humes was coerced into it for his testimony to the HSCA. Afterwards, he continued denying the red spot as having any significance at all.
From Reclaiming Parkland:
"In his introduction, Bugliosi makes a statement and uses an example that provides a recurring motif: an attempt to show that much of the work of the critical community is unfounded. He states that the critics have always written that no rifleman has ever duplicated Oswald’s feat at the Texas School Book Depository of firing three shots and scoring two hits in the head and shoulder areas in less than six seconds. He says that this charge is not accurate. He then points to an example in the Warren Commission Report of a mysterious soldier named Miller (no first name given) who, according to a commanding officer, actually bettered Oswald’s feat. Bugliosi’s implication is that this information has been out for years but the critical community has ignored it since it would undermine their arguments. Therefore you cannot trust them with even the evidence in the Warren Commission volumes. However, this implication is unfounded. You can read about this episode on Warren Commission critic Michael Griffith’s website and in Sylvia Meagher’s classic critique of the Warren Commission, Accessories After the Fact. In fact, Meagher goes into this specific subject and testimony at greater length than Bugliosi does. But why would she if, as the prosecutor says, it undermines her case for Oswald’s innocence?
Examining the testimony completely does not undermine the critics’ case at all. Three “master marksmen” took two tries at duplicating what Oswald was supposed to have done. As Meagher explains it, these “master marksmen” were rated at the very top of the scale, not by the Marines, but by the National Rifle Association. In other words, they were even better than the top shooters in the armed services by a level of two or more classes; so proficient they qualified for open competition and even the Olympic Games! Now compare this to Oswald, who barely made the lowest class possible when he left the Marines in 1959. How can one equate the two? Further, while these men practiced all the time, there is no known credible witness who saw Oswald target practice with the rifle in question. One wonders why the Commission allowed the military to select these marksmen and not a shooter more comparable to Oswald. The results show why. Of the three men, only one of them bettered Oswald’s time. But here’s the catch, Oswald was firing from sixty feet up at a moving target, while the three experts were firing from thirty feet up at still targets. As Meagher notes, wouldn’t it have been quite simple to just rope off Dealey Plaza, put these guys in the sixth floor window, place a convertible in the street below, and try a true experiment? If this was not done, why not? Neither in the text at this point, nor in the corresponding end note section does Bugliosi tell you about the different settings or pose the question as to why they were not the same."
MicahJava
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Dr. Peter Cummings agrees that the entry is somewhere low in the head, but implicitly admits that he cannot identify any specific mark or shadow on the X-ray that could be the actual hole, nor does he explain how the pattern of fragments could be caused by one bullet. He also has this idea that the bullet would only damage the occipital lobe after bouncing sharply upwards.
By default, he admits that the depressed cowlick fracture is just a defect related to the large head wound. Why would he be a member of 'they'?
MicahJava
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Oh right, NOVA's Cold Case did show that, I forgot about that. But did you forget the part where wood is in no way comparable to bones? Even the show's narrator admits that wood blocks are an old fashioned way of testing bullets!
The Warren Commission already answered what would happen when the nose hits bones. CE853 is a bullet fired through a goat's rib.
Henry Hurt fired the same kind of bullet in water and here was his result:
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MicahJava
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Let's see. First, I've always argued here that the throat wound was some kind of exit. Second, David Lifton pointed out to me that Dr. Perry had apparently once rejected the tracheotomy as the incision he made, saying "I left the wound inviolate".
As for the back shot, the beauty of it is that is that the autopsy found it to be so shallow that it could've just naturally squeezed out of the body at some point in time. This is consistent with something like an undercharged round (like if somebody was trying to create less noise during the shooting, or if somebody was using a sabot).
Do you have any actual evidence that Connally's right shoulder wasn't fully visible from behind Kennedy at ~z222, or is that just something that lone nut authors repeat?
Meadmaker
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Exponentially?
BStrong
Penultimate Amazing
Meagher was no better informed than you are.
First of all, duplication is not required to support the facts surrounding the mechanical aspects of the shooting. I've said it repeatedly - that one man's shooting can't be duplicated by me doesn't mean they did not perform at the level in evidence. Sarver shot .14 MO at 1000 yds w/ 5 V's. I can't. That doesn't mean Sarver didn't do what he did. Is that clear enough for you? If you've got any facts in evidence to prove otherwise...
Her understanding of marksmanship and marksmanship in competition is fatally flawed, and as a point of fact here's the current list for summer olympic shooting sports:
https://www.olympic.org/shooting
Here's the historical list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_at_the_Summer_Olympics
For those keeping score at home, it is interesting to note that service rifle competition took place one year only - 1920 - and after that actual rifle competitions have been restricted to purpose built target rifles that have the same relationship to a service rifle that an F1 car does to a production vehicle.
Marina Oswald stated that LHO did practice with the rifle and cleaned it several times:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/oswald_m1.htm
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ever see him clean the rifle?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. I said before I had never seen it before. But I think you understand. I want to help you, and that is why there is no reason for concealing anything. I will not be charged with anything.
Mr. GOPADZE. She says she was not sworn in before. But now inasmuch as she is sworn in, she is going to tell the truth.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you see him clean the rifle a number of times?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Could you help us by giving some estimate of the times as you remember it?
Mrs. OSWALD. About four times---about four or five times, I think.
Mr. RANKIN. Did your husband ever tell you why he was cleaning the--that is, that he had been using it and needed to be cleaned after use?
Mrs. OSWALD. No, I did not ask him, because I thought it was quite normal that when you have a rifle you must clean it from time to time.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ever observe your husband taking the rifle away from the apartment on Neely Street?
Mrs. OSWALD. Now, I think that he probably did sometimes, but I never did see it. You must understand that sometimes I would be in the kitchen and he would be in his room downstairs, and he would say bye-bye, I will be hack soon, and he may have taken it. He probably did. Perhaps he purely waited for an occasion when he could take it away without my seeing it.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ever observe that the rifle had been taken out of the apartment at Neely Street---that is, that it was gone?
Mrs. OSWALD. Before the incident with General Walker, I know that Lee was preparing for something. He took photographs of that house and he told me not to enter his room. I didn't know about these photographs, but when I came into the room once in general he tried to make it so that I would spend less time in that room. I noticed that quite accidentally one time when I was cleaning the room he tried to take care of it himself.
I asked him what kind of photographs are these, but he didn't say anything to me.
Mr. RANKIN. That is the photographs of the Walker house that you were asking about?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. Later, after he had fired, he told me about it.
I didn't know that he intended to do it---that he was planning to do it.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you learn at any time that he had been practicing with the rifle?
Mrs. OSWALD. I think that he went once or twice. I didn't actually see him take the rifle, but I knew that he was practicing.
Mr. RANKIN. Could you give us a little help on how you knew?
Mrs. OSWALD. He told me. And he would mention that in passing---it isn't
as if he said, "Well, today I am going"---it wasn't as if he said, "Well, today I am going to take the rifle and go and practice." But he would say, "Well, today I will take the rifle along for practice."
So SM's research skills leave much to be desired and this is a good example. You fell for it because you don't have enough experience in the subject matter to make an objective evaluation of the evidence.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but you took bad information that you have no way to evaluate, filtered it through your confirmation bias and came up with a poor theory that you're evidently now married to.
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BStrong
Penultimate Amazing
It's like when the Germans attacked Pearl Harbor.
HSienzant
Philosopher
Your understanding of the argument would be wrong. The argument has been that the test bullets struck less, but suffered more damage. I already quoted from Lane, who spoke about the damage the bullets that struck only a rib or only a wrist directly suffered (while ignoring the fact that wasn't what CE399 was alleged to have done).
Here's Meagher's take on the same subject:
Dr. Alfred G. Olivier, U.S. Army wound ballistics expert, testified that 260 rounds of Western Cartridge Company 6.5 mm. ammunition were obtained for use in the wound ballistics tests carried out to determine the penetration characteristics of the bullets. (5H 75) It is not known how many of the 260 cartridges were used in the experiments, but the Exhibits show only two. (CE 853, 856)
One bullet, fired into a human cadaver wrist, emerged with the nose completely flattened (CE 856), in startling contrast to the stretcher bullet (CE 399) which, according to the Commission, had penetrated the neck of one man, and fractured a rib and wrist bone of a second man.
Two test bullets fired by the FBI for comparison purposes (CE 572) (probably into a bale of soft material to prevent mutilation or fragmentation), on the other hand, closely resemble the stretcher bullet.
Josiah Thompson says (page 154): "Although the argument from weight loss fails [to eliminate CE399 as the bullet that struck both men] the more critical argument from deformation succeeds. The nearly pristine character of CE399 precludes its being the bullet that injured the Governor."
The argument has always been that CE399 should not - COULD NOT - have emerged in one piece and as undamaged as it was had it struck both men, as test bullets struck less but suffered more damage. The Discovery Channel test establishes that argument is false.
You did, in the image above, exactly what you were complaining about here:
You selected the most mangled image of the Discovery Channel's bullet, vs the least mangled image of the actual bullet recovered at Parkland to render your comparison.
The point of the matter is as the bullet strikes only 'meat' (no bone) to start, it is slowed down and starts tumbling, striking the next victim sideways, accounting for the flattening along one side, and then struck a rib (two ribs in the Discovery Channel [D.C.] test), bending it slightly before strike the hardest bone in its travels (but at a greatly reduced speed) before going part way in the thigh (it bounced off the thing in the D.C. test).
And it proves the point that CE399 could have travelled a similar journey, survived in one piece, and emerged with its nose intact.
The complaints from the early critics are severely dated and no longer meaningful, given the rotoscoped and stabilized close-up images of the carnage inflicted on the victims within the limo we now have available.
For example, Meagher makes this silly argument:
Thus the Commission says:
The Commission has stated, in effect, that Zapruder did not see the President at the moment that he was first shot because of the intervention of the traffic sign. This is a contradiction of Zapruder's testimony: "I heard the first shot and I saw the President lean over and grab himself like this [holding his left chest area ." (7H 571) (Italics added) As Harold Weisberg has pointed out in his book Whitewash, Zapruder's testimony in itself strongly suggests that the President was hit before he disappeared behind the sign at Frame 210 and while he was still invisible to a rifleman in the sixth-floor window. The lawyer who took Zapruder's testimony failed to appreciate or explore this important observation, and the Warren Report, ignoring the Zapruder testimony, inaccurately asserts that he did not see what he so inconveniently saw.
At Frame 225 the President is reacting to the bullet in the back but the Governor shows absolutely no evidence of being shot.
Of course, Meagher completely ignores the possibility that if there was a shot about Z223, and Zapruder heard that shot (with a short delay because the bullet travels faster than sound), then he heard that shot and saw the President react as he emerged from behind the sign about Z225, not before he went behind it.
Her logic, and Weisberg's, who she borrows liberally from here, both leave a lot to be desired.
She also ignores the lapel flap and Connally's hat flip, quickly bringing his hat up and down. Okay, maybe that's not her fault, as the stabilized versions weren't available yet, but the point is proven. She argues from inadequate data for a conspiracy she is wedded to.
No, I don't. I already pointed out your opinions are not evidence, and that the record speaks for itself.
Now, about that pesky bullet that was recovered at Parkland: was it planted there, a bullet that fell out of a victim of another shooting, or something else entirely? Any idea? You brought up the CE399 bullet, quoting extensively from a conspiracy theorist (Jim DiEugenio) claiming it wasn't legit, but you've yet to expand upon those initial claims. Let's test your beliefs.
Do you remember quoting this from Eugenio:
Why are you avoiding defending it?
Hank
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Germans?
Forget it, he's rolling.
HSienzant
Philosopher
So after claiming it's not about the nose of CE399 emerging intact (Undeformed tip? I don't know about that. I understand that the argument has always been that the bullet was tumbling when it hit bone), you go on to claim it's about the nose of CE399 emerging intact.
And you make the claim I already showed was inadequate when Mark Lane, Josiah Thompson, and Sylvia Meagher made it - that a bullet fired directly into a goat's rib somehow eliminates CE399 from traveling a very different path and suffering very different damage.
It was bizarre when Mark Lane, Josiah Thompson, and Sylvia Meagher made that claim, it's no less bizarre when you make it, especially when you make it immediately after being told it would not fly.
Hank
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HSienzant
Philosopher
She mentions Miller, but flits right over the implications. She also simply lies about the results, saying two of the three failed to match Oswald's results. Oswald put two of three shots into the President in upwards of 7.9 seconds, according to the Warren Commission.
In other words, the total time span of the shots could be eight, nine, or even ten seconds, as the Commission could not determine which shot missed, nor could they determine when the first or last shot was fired, if either of those was the one that missed.
So when we talk about the time of the shots, it is upward of 7.9 seconds... maybe nine or ten seconds in total.
Yet Meagher wrote: The tests actually conducted at Aberdeen remain supremely irrelevant as a measure of Oswald's rifle capability. The results are nevertheless significant in some respects.
The rifle tests are discussed in the Warren Report, in somewhat evasive terms (WR 193-194), and in the testimony of Army Expert Ronald Simmons (3H 441-451). Three master riflemen each fired two series of three shots, using the so-called assassination rifle with the telescopic sight. (One of the experts fired an extra series of three shots with iron sights.) Two of the master riflemen completely failed to match the feat attributed to Oswald. The best of the three, Miller, got two hits out of three in each series, taking 4.6 and 5.15 seconds respectively.
Staley got two hits out of three in 6.75 seconds, and then three out of three in 6.45 seconds. Hendrix got two hits out of three in each of his two series, taking 8.25 and 7.0 seconds respectively.
DiEugenio is disingenuous above in referencing Meagher's reference to Miller.
DiEugenio is also disingenuous in claiming "Of the three men, only one of them bettered Oswald’s time."
The six times are 4.6, 5.15, 6.75. 6.45, 8.25, and 7.0 seconds.
All of them are better than Oswald's maximum time as determined by the Warren Commission. It's a lie to say otherwise.
As noted, it's false when Meagher claimed it. It's false when DiEugenio claimed it, it's false when you quote DiEugenio or Meagher claiming it.
All of them took less time than the Warren Commission allowed Oswald.
Bugliosi said that.
Hank
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HSienzant
Philosopher
So why didn't the autopsists find two wounds in the neck, if Lifton's claim is correct? Why don't the autopsy photos show two wounds in the neck? (one trache and one bullet wound)?
The autopsy report mentions no such development.
Perhaps you can quote from it where it says anything like you're claiming it says: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-09.pdf
So this was intentional, as opposed to Reheat's accidental discharge a few pages back?
If the point is to kill JFK, what's the point of using an undercharged round that would have to be aimed over JFK's head to actually hit JFK? Why couldn't they use a full powder charge AND a silenced weapon "like if somebody was trying to create less noise during the shooting"? What's the point of 'wasting' a shot?, especially since even Olympic quality shooters would have difficulty hitting JFK, according to the arguments you've advanced here? Does your theory make any sense?
Look at the Dale Myers recreation. You can see where Connally is relative to JFK. You can plunk that limo down into a plat map of Dealey Plaza and determine where a shot hitting Connally would have to come from if it didn't pass through JFK first (hint: it's the western end of the TSBD. Any evidence of a shooter there)?
No, of course not. The only evidence for a shooter is the one you don't accept fired the shots that did all the damage, using the only weapon recovered that day, and left ballistic evidence behind in three shells, two large fragments, and one nearly whole bullet.
Oh, that's right. Part of the CT religion is that anything pointing to Oswald is automatically suspected of being planted or a forgery.
Hank
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Actually, if you watched the clip, you would have noticed that he comes to the same conclusion that every other forensic pathologist that has examined the evidence has come to, one bullet from behind entered JFK's head and exited to the right front.
Again, what are your qualifications in pathology that we should believe your interpretation over what every single pathologist has determined?
I'm not asking for your interpretation, I'm asking for what evidence you have of a "sabot" or any other of your fanciful creations. And if you believe that JFK's throat wound was from the rear but the back wound only penetrated a few inches, where's the other entrance wound?
Remember, evidence, not personal opinion, please.
Axxman300
Philosopher
Wood block testing for ballistics comes from the US Army, because they kinda need to know the penetration of different rounds, and what happens once that round passes through so they can build better defensive positions at FOBs.
I would contend that bullets as we know them today, being a 19th century design, are also old fashioned. And this is what makes ballistics fun.
They've had belted ammunition since WWI, and this enables hundreds of rounds to be fired at a specific target. Soldiers do this every day in training. You can fire 200 rounds of .762 into a wall made of old railroad ties, and then dig out all the spent bullets. DARPA does this every once in a while. They find that most of the impact damage is consistent - but not identical, and a percentage of bullets will be odd-balls.
So if you think there's a repeatable ballistics test you'd be wrong. That's why you have to fire so many to get a ball-park picture, and then compare that with the bullet used in the crime.
These photos and the others you've posted only prove the Carcano round was uniquely capably of causing the damage we saw in Dallas. Absent from your uneducated cut and paste job are photos of other types of rounds fired from the same range at identical targets. I know what .556 and .762 rounds look like at 100 yards, and they'd be in worse shape.
You look but you do not see.
BStrong
Penultimate Amazing
Thank you. At least one person remembers the classics
BStrong
Penultimate Amazing
I missed this bolded gem of ballistic wisdom the first time I read this post.
For the uninitiated, a sabot is essentially a manufactured collar that goes on a smaller than bore diameter projectile in order for the smaller diameter projectile to be fired from that larger bore rifle.
It also has application in anti-tank rounds using Depleted Uranium, primarily to protect the barrel of the weapon, but let's stick to small arms.
Fiction writers going back a ways all the way to the present ( I busted David Corbett's balls about his use of it in Blood of Paradise, an otherwise great book I recommend) have used the sabot as a plot device to one level of realistic depiction or another, but in the real world the sabot is basically used to turn a full service rifle caliber rifle into a varmnt rifle using light weight projectiles at very high velocities:
MJ, would you be kind enough to explain how using a sabot is going to make a rifle quieter, or make less of a wound channel? I'm very interested in your explanation, especially in light of how sabots actually work, and why they are used.
Axxman300
Philosopher
The better question is:
How many assassinations have been carried out with a long rifle?
I mean ever.
Most shootings are at point-blank.
Side note: We are currently experiencing a bunch of deaths of Russian opponents of Uncle Vlad. A few have been shot, but at point blank range, the rest have been poisoned, beaten to death, and one just "fell off a building" in NYC.
The KGB/FSB has a long and effective history of assassination, and I can't think of one time where they went with a sniper.
Same can be said of the Mafia, and the CIA. All of their assassinations prior to 2001 (CIA) have been short range to point blank, and with blunt force trauma, stabbings, poisoning, SMALL CALIBER silenced weapons, and bombs.
The problem with a rifle is that there is so much that can go wrong if the goal is a high-profile assassination. You have to find a concealed location with a clear shot, get into that location on the day of the shooting, hope that your target's schedule doesn't change, and hope that the security force doesn't see you first. But wait there's more! What if you're target is wearing body armor which can counter your round? What if they switch vehicles? What if they double security? What if they add new dimensions of security? What if someone stumbles upon you and you have to kill them too? What if your target doesn't show up, and you have to leave, can you leave unseen? What if you shoot and miss?
Walking up on your target like Jack Ruby did has a 95% success rate.
How many assassinations have been carried out with a long rifle?
I mean ever.
Most shootings are at point-blank.
Side note: We are currently experiencing a bunch of deaths of Russian opponents of Uncle Vlad. A few have been shot, but at point blank range, the rest have been poisoned, beaten to death, and one just "fell off a building" in NYC.
The KGB/FSB has a long and effective history of assassination, and I can't think of one time where they went with a sniper.
Same can be said of the Mafia, and the CIA. All of their assassinations prior to 2001 (CIA) have been short range to point blank, and with blunt force trauma, stabbings, poisoning, SMALL CALIBER silenced weapons, and bombs.
The problem with a rifle is that there is so much that can go wrong if the goal is a high-profile assassination. You have to find a concealed location with a clear shot, get into that location on the day of the shooting, hope that your target's schedule doesn't change, and hope that the security force doesn't see you first. But wait there's more! What if you're target is wearing body armor which can counter your round? What if they switch vehicles? What if they double security? What if they add new dimensions of security? What if someone stumbles upon you and you have to kill them too? What if your target doesn't show up, and you have to leave, can you leave unseen? What if you shoot and miss?
Walking up on your target like Jack Ruby did has a 95% success rate.
MicahJava
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Important note: Has anybody ever tried to test the accuracy of a single-assassin/Carcano scenario only using the iron sights? That's really the only way to do it now that most now agree that using the iron sights would be easier than using the scope.
Meadmaker
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Martin Luther King and Anton Cermak leap to mind. (Cermak, Mayor of Chicago, was riding with President-elect Franklin Rooseveldt, if memory serves correctly.
MicahJava
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Kill Zone: A Sniper Looks at Dealey Plaza by Craig Roberts explains the use of a sabot and it's possible relation to Dealey Plaza scenarios:
[A] sabot round — a specially hand-loaded bullet — [is] purposely fired to insert false evidence into the crime scene. In this case, either into the car or the body. It mattered not which, as long as “Oswald’s” bullet could be found with enough rifling left intact to match the barrel of the 6.5 Carcano.
What that means is this: a 6.5mm bullet, with its relevant rifling left intact by being fired into a tank of water and recovered, can be reloaded into a larger casing, such as .30 caliber (which is 7.62 millimeter in diameter), and be used again. Only this time, the plastic sabot liner is what actually makes contact with the inside of the barrel, rides the [lands] and grooves, and picks up the rifling marks of this particular weapon. The bullet sheds the plastic liner, then travels downrange bearing the marks of the rifle from which it was originally fired. And if the round is undercharged, the bullet travels at much less of a velocity — with a reduced noise signature — until it comes to rest in the area intended by the shooter. In an opposite scenario, the sabottype round is used to increase velocity and striking power. It does this by using the powder charge of a larger volume casing to propel a smaller, lighter bullet. In any case, it is evident that at some date and time a sabot round was fired from the roof of the Records Building, from behind the waist-high parapet that overlooks Dealey Plaza.
From Noel H. Twyman's book Bloody Treason:
...By using a partially charged car*tridge, a "sabot" can be used for a "meat shot"; that is to fire a bullet at low veloc*ity that does not penetrate the body, but is a marker found in the body that will trace back to a rifle from which the bullet was not fired-i.e., Oswald's rifle.
Re-firing bullets that came from CE139 is one theory, but sabots and undercharged rounds are possible ways to explain a scenario in which the back wound would literally be as shallow as the autopsy professionals believed. Rounds can be intentionally undercharged for reasons such as reducing noise.
HSienzant
Philosopher
Yes. It was accomplished.
Miller hit two of three using the iron sights using Oswald's rifle. And took only 4.45 seconds to do so. Could he have done better with three shots if he knew he could take 8 seconds or more? Undoubtedly. Or alternately, could he have gotten off four or five shots in eight seconds? Also undoubtedly.
Mr. SIMMONS. ...Specialist Miller used 4.6 seconds on his first attempt, 5.15 seconds in his second attempt, and 4.45 seconds in his exercise using the iron sight.
Mr. EISENBERG. What was the accuracy of Specialist Miller?
Mr. SIMMONS. I do not have his accuracy separated from the group.
Mr. EISENBERG. Is it possible to separate the accuracy out?
Mr. SIMMONS. Yes; it is, by an additional calculation.
Mr. Miller succeeded in hitting the third target on both attempts with the telescope. He missed the second target on both attempts with the telescope,
but he hit the second target with the iron sight. And he emplaced all three rounds on the target, the first target.
Mr. EISENBERG. How did he do with the iron sight on the third target?
Mr. SIMMONS. On the third target he missed the boards completely. And we have not checked this out. It appears that for the firing posture which Mr. Miller--Specialist Miller uses, the iron sight is not zeroed for him, since his impacts on the first and second targets were quite high, and against the third target we would assume that the projectile went over the top of the target, which extended only a few inches over the top of the silhouette.
Again: Two of three in less than 4.5 seconds.
Any other questions?
Hank
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MicahJava
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Cmikes, either you have a funny way of viewing science, or you are playing semantics in an effort to win an internet joust with verbal diarrhea.
HSienzant
Philosopher
Never trust memory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Cermak
While shaking hands with President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida, on February 15, 1933, Cermak was shot[5] in the lung and mortally wounded when Giuseppe Zangara, who at the time was believed to have been engaged in an attempt to assassinate Roosevelt, hit Cermak instead. At the critical moment, Lilian Cross, a woman standing near Zangara, hit Zangara's arm with her purse and spoiled his aim.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Zangara
On February 15, 1933, Roosevelt was giving an impromptu speech at night from the back of an open car in the Bayfront Park area of Miami, Florida, where Zangara was working the occasional odd job and living off his savings. Zangara, armed with a .32-caliber US Revolver Company[2] pistol he had bought for $8 at a local pawn shop, joined the crowd.
Hank
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